Real bullets injure 17 at French military show

[Praxius]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/06/30/france-shooting.html

Seventeen people, including a three-year-old child, were injured in France over the weekend when real bullets were fired at a military shooting demonstration instead of blanks.

The incident happened Sunday during a demonstration of hostage-freeing techniques at an open house at Laperrine military barracks in southern France, Defence Ministry officials said.

The open house was intended to thank the public for its support and mark a new era of friendship between the base, its soldiers and the community. The shooting involved the same brigade scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan later this summer.

Two soldiers and 15 visitors were rushed to nearby hospitals via helicopters and a motorcade of ambulances after one senior soldier opened fire with real bullets.

Four of the wounded are in serious condition, including a three-year-old child, said Bernard Lemaire, chief of the regional administration in Aude, on France-3 television.
The soldier involved in the shooting has been detained.

"It's too early to talk about a criminal act," Col. Benoit Royale, head of the army's information unit, said in French. "We're just perplexed that something like this could happen given all the safety measures."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his "horror" at Sunday's incident and demanded an explanation.

Officials are investigating why a weapon was pointed at the crowd and why real bullets were in the gun.

 

[#juan]

That is a real stunner. It was either stupidity or sabotage. One thing that gets me is that firing real bullets is different from firing blanks. When I was in the military a hundred years ago we used blanks occasionally and we fired real bullets out of the same rifles. The real bullets had a recoil that the blanks didn't have.

If someone substituted blanks for the first two shells in a full clip of real bullets, it would be easy to miss because you can only see the first couple of rounds in a clip.

Who knows?.....Maybe the guy just didn't like people....:smile::roll:

 

[mabudon]

however it happened that is rather messed up, wonder what the eventual outcome would be cos if that happened on this side of the pond the military would be sued out of existence

 

[#juan]

however it happened that is rather messed up, wonder what the eventual outcome would be cos if that happened on this side of the pond the military would be sued out of existence

If it happened to the Canadian military, the inquiry alone would probably take 38 years...:smile:

 

[Blackleaf]

It's been many, many years since the French Army fired real bullets.